"No," she said quietly. "I have not got as far as that yet. But I believe that after some little time I may be glad. I hope so, I am working for that. Sometimes I begin to have a keen interest in everything. I wake up with an enthusiasm. After about two hours I have lost it again."
"Poor little child," he said tenderly. "I, too know what that is. But you will get back to gladness: not the same kind of satisfaction as before; but some other satisfaction, that compensation which is said to be included in the scheme."
"And I have begun my book," she said, pointing to a few sheets lying on the counter: that is to say, I have written the Prologue."
"Then the dusting of the books has not sufficed?" he said, scanning her curiously.
"I wanted not to think of myself," Bernardine, said. "Now that I have begun it, I shall enjoy going on with it. I hope it will be a companion to me."
"I wonder whether you will make a failure or a success of it?" he remarked. "I wish I could have seen."
"So you will," she said. "I shall finish it, and you will read it in
Petershof."
"I shall not be going back to Petershof," he said. "Why should I go there now?"
"For the same reason that you went there eight years ago," she said.
"I went there for my mother's sake," he said.